It's a Small, Mad World
by hillabilla
Summary: AU Crossover, Adam Milligan/Tate Langdon. Adam and Tate become friends against all odds in high school. They get each other like no one else does. And through the bad and the good, they'll stick together through anything- right? Rated M (mostly later chapters) for smut, drug use, child abuse, and developing mental illnesses.


Adam Milligan was fourteen when he met Tate Langdon for the first time. It was 1991, and they had gym together, but it didn't matter much. Tate was never there—he often skipped, and Adam sometimes saw him hanging behind the bleachers while he ran track. They didn't know each other, and Adam found he wasn't really curious what the boy was up to, because he always looked so sullen and he always talked so fast that Adam just tuned him out.

It wasn't that Adam couldn't keep up. It was that he didn't feel like bothering with it. Maybe he was going through a phase, but everything annoyed him, and everything seemed stupid and pointless. His head hurt all the time and he found himself snapping for no reason. He found no joy in anything. He lived in L.A. and couldn't have been more bored with that fact.

What changed everything was that day when he decided that maybe that Tate kid knew a few things, and Adam decided to skip gym as well. He had no plans as to where he was going—so long as it was not gym class. The place where he sometimes saw Tate seemed empty when he peered out the back door windows, and if it was good enough for that kid, it was good enough for Adam. He went out without changing into his gym clothes, his jeans and short-sleeved blue plaid shirt a bit too stifling in the lingering heat. Adam sighed and tugged the shirt from his shoulders, leaving on his dark grey tee shirt that had some mechanic's logo from Lawrence, wherever that was. Regardless, it was Adam's favorite shirt. He'd found it stuffed in the attic, and when he asked his mother about it, she told him it had belonged to his father. He'd never met the guy, but the shirt fit, so he kept it.

"What are you doing here, stiff?"

Adam glanced up, his right eyebrow leading the charge. "Excuse me?" he questioned, seeing the goofy, too long hair and narrow build of none other than the captain and commander of this hooky hideout.

"No need to sass, guy, just wanted to know why you're skipping your beloved gym class."

Adam wanted to tell Tate off, tell him to leave him alone. But at the same time he found he didn't want that at all, not really. Because of Adam's tendency to ignore everyone, everyone tended to return the favor. It wasn't often that someone other than a teacher would talk to him. Maybe it wasn't so bad that Tate was doing so. Adam took the kid in—he was scrawny and slight, shorter than Adam, but not by much. Adam's hair was a bit on the longer side too, though much straighter.

His forehead knit—he wasn't entirely sure why he was comparing their hair.

"Anyway, you're here, so, I don't know, wanna hang out?" Tate asked him, kicking a stone off down the length of the bleachers. He stepped over the cross-beams that held up the elevated benches and slid underneath them into the shadow they cast. He didn't give Adam time to respond before disappearing. Adam figured he had nothing to lose, so he stepped over as well, following the weird kid.

It took his eyes a moment to adjust, but as they did he realized it wasn't as dark under here as it seemed from outside. It was actually kind of nice, with the right amount of shade to keep out much of the heat. Adam looked around and nearly walked into Tate, who was watching him oddly.

"I'm Tate, so you know. And I don't really know who you are. Do I want to know?" he asked, waiting patiently for an answer. He didn't seem so odd as people would say, and Adam found that he was actually pretty pleasant.

"It's Adam," he finally said, and the guy nodded.

"Funny how that is. Adam was the first man. And you're the first person who's been down here with me. I guess that means we should probably be friends, right?" Tate asked casually, his young frame too small in his clothes that had a definite thrift-shop quality to them. Adam would know, that's where his mother got his.

"I guess," Adam shrugged noncommittally, though the bite had left his words.

Tate smirked and shook his head. "Cool."

Adam found himself under the bleachers every day of gym after that.

* * *

They were both fifteen now—Adam had just had his birthday party. It wasn't much of a party, since only one person came. Since Tate was the only one Adam had actually invited, he didn't feel bad about that at all.

It had turned out that they didn't live too far from each other. Adam's small house was about a ten minute walk from Tate's grand one. When he realized the part of the neighborhood Tate was from, he'd been embarrassed primarily that he and his mom practically lived in a hovel. L.A. wasn't cheap, he knew that, and he was grateful that his mother took care of him. With her two jobs, and he working some small tedious work wherever they'd hire a kid, they were getting by, only just. But Tate wasn't bothered by it when he showed up—he seemed happy, honestly, and Adam wondered why it was that he could count on his left hand the number of times he'd seen Tate happy about anything. Indifference or bitterness were much more common.

Adam had thought about just taking Tate up to his room, maybe play Battleship or something stupid. But he decided against it at the last minute, instead selecting a walk to the park two miles away. It was cooler now, a bit later in the year, and the walk wasn't too long to be uncomfortable. They had no silence between them, which was nice. Tate talked about all sorts of things, and Adam found that he might be the most fascinating person he'd met, while he wasn't much to shout about.

Tate told Adam about his brother Beauregard and sister Adelaide, though he didn't really go into much detail. He never mentioned his parents, and Adam wondered casually if that was the reason Tate had been happy to get out of his house. That was the only explanation as to why he'd be okay with a house like Adam's. They spent four hours in the park, and the sun was nearly gone by the time they trudged back. Tate's mother was there, waiting for him when he returned. As she took Tate to their car, he saw her smack him on the side of the head and winced. He frowned, angry, and wished he could do something, but with his own mother holding his shoulder firmly, he stayed put until finally wrenching free and storming into the house to his room.

* * *

Adam's headaches kept getting worse and worse, though the only people that knew were his mother, who made sure he always had Excedrin on him, and his friend Tate, who helped by telling him dirty jokes and letting Adam talk about things until he felt better.

Tate was always there anymore, and Adam hadn't expected to make such fast friends with the kid he'd always associated with words like 'weird stoner' and 'lunatic'. He didn't think that anymore, and felt like he should feel bad for having thought it, but he didn't. He didn't regret much. He let life work the way it wanted to work, because he was painfully indifferent to how it turned out. He told Tate that once, and Tate nodded in his agreement. "I get that, seriously. Why bother with conscience and things like that? We're all fucked anyway."

Adam was sure that was the reason they got along so well. They both saw the world for what they thought it was—shit. It was easy being friends with someone who hated all the same stuff you did.

The two of them were in a tree house in someone else's back yard, their feet swinging off the back. Adam didn't even know whose yard that was, but it didn't bother him. "Tate," he asked, tilting his head over. "Do you believe in God?"

"Something like that. It's hard though, to believe in anything Constance believes in. It's an immediate turn off, you know?"

Adam nodded, and was about to add something when they could hear yelling below, and they both started laughing as they realized that the man who owned the tree house they were illegally squatting in had brought a gun. "Run!" Adam laughed as they scrambled down the rope and took off down the street.


End file.
